SA could play a pivotal role swaying UN on Syria reforms
IN COUNTRIES such as Syria and Yemen, the only real advance has been the gradual destruction of ordinary people’s lives and livelihoods.
For years now they are into proxy wars of a multitude of players, all UN members, advancing all sorts of interests and agendas, flattening square kilometre after kilometre of living space and leaving millions homeless. Calls for the UN to meaningfully intervene have recently grown to a chorus: Stop this insanity!
An internal political settlement at the outset could have averted all this. The 20th century was littered with examples, including South Africa in 1994. In this, all the participants in the two conflicts have to be recognised and involved, not only ad hoc selections.
Recent UN attempts through Staffan de Mistura were all stranded on the same rock: he simply did not have his organisation’s full backing.
Doubtless, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres is painfully aware that the colossus he heads requires measures for deep organisational and cultural transformation, but realises his limitations.
The Security Council is hobbled by a power distribution architecture required in the immediate post-World War II years but simply perpetuates misery in the two countries mentioned, Myanmar and elsewhere.
Such reforms could entail limitations to the veto when the General Assembly decides by two-thirds majority that a country’s humanitarian situation requires unhampered physical intervention to effect adequate relief overriding that country’s government.
There is the overdue slimming of its bloated bureaucracy. Another reform would be wider regional representation on the Security Council.
The secretary-general needs support and inspiration from as many of his 193 member states as possible. In this, South Africa could play a pivotal role under its new and dynamic people’s administration now poised to take over. Ramaphosa increasingly takes on the mantle of world icon Nelson Mandela.
The country enjoys considerable standing at the UN, dating back to the era of Smuts. Its reputation was badly tarnished by Jacob Zuma, which made his attempt at gaining representation on the Security Council in 2015 laughable. (Yes, bye-bye our own Trump.)
We can now firmly and authoritatively raise our voice in the General Assembly and lobby other like-minded members to bolster Guterres in pushing reforms through the organisation’s still stultifying bureaucracy.
This is a unique challenge our new and potentially powerful administration is bound to rise to. It will find wholehearted support from the whole country and most of Africa. Balt Verhagen Bramley